The impromptu war council reconvened in Otto’s ironworks. They quickly got him up to speed and restarted their conversation from the bakery.

“We’ve got to stop all non-essential work and focus on the things that will save our lives and protect our homes,” Jason told the group. “Otto, that means no pipe making. The dozen or so workers that will free up will switch production to gunpowder and helping you with guns. Or at least what we have. Otto, would you show the group the device?”

“Here is what I was told to produce,” Otto began. “We took a bar of iron and drilled down the center using the water wheel to power what Jason calls a lathe. Essentially, we mounted the bar to the end of the spinning shaft.”

“While it wasn’t spinning, of course!” One of the nearby apprentices shouted out.

“Yes, of course,” Otto shot the young man a glare.

“Now, where was I? Yes, you see how we were able to mount the bar on the spinning shaft. I also was able to shape and file down this steel into a cutting blade and harden it sufficiently to get it to cut into the softer iron here. Press the cutting blade into the bar, and it begins to hollow out the center. We were able to cut into it about a foot before it began to deflect too far to the side and we stopped. If we had continued, I’m sure the cutting blade would have snapped off.”

“Then, per Jason’s instructions, we drilled this…” the smith paused and tried to remember the word. “What did you call it? An access port?”

“Sure. It’s where we’re going to ignite the gunpowder on these boomsticks.”

Otto shook his head and muttered, “I swear, half the work is trying to remember all the names you give the pieces and projects.”

He continued to describe the process. “In total, we could make several of these a day. The inner diameter of these tubes is consistent, but the outer wall thickness may not be, due to the cutting edge deflecting when it gets inserted further and further into the bar.”

“That is a problem,” Jason said. “But I don’t have a better solution right now. I’d like you to get everyone that’s currently working on pipes working on this and crank out as many as you can each day, at least as long as the lamps will let you go into the evening.”

He started to stand and said, “Now, let’s discuss gunpowder.”

“Wait,” Otto called out, and added “my lord” as an afterthought.

“When you asked me to make these, I wasn’t sure why you wanted them done that way, but you seemed sure it was the proper way, and I hadn’t seen them made before. But as a blacksmith, this isn’t how I’d have approached the problem.”

Jason, Alex, and Tyler gathered around the chest from which the sturdy blacksmith pulled a cylindrical steel object with a faint spiral pattern traveling up what turned out to be a tube. It was beautiful, and Jason reached out and picked it up.

“How in the world did you do this so much better than the other way?” Jason asked, almost reverently.

“First, I took a pretty large sheet of iron that was rather thin and worked and rolled and welded it around a center rod. I worked in sections about a foot long at a time, since that’s about as much as I could do in the next part of this process without the piece being extremely unwieldy. Once I had that made, I removed the rod and took a narrow ribbon of iron and heated it a few inches at a time. The team and I worked it around the inner tube, forming a spiral tightly around it.

“To put it all together, we had to put three sections in the forge at once, heat them up, and weld them into one long piece.”

“Of course, the center of the tube wasn’t anywhere near as the process you had laid out, so we ended up taking it over to the lathe and boring it out in the way we would have anyway. Doing it this way meant removing much less material, and the process is much faster. But I did have to make a much longer cutting rod and frequently check that it hadn’t gotten off-center.”

Otto finally stopped talking and noticed that Jason’s mouth was hanging open. Both Tyler and Alex looked impressed too.

Jason snagged a nearby stool and sat down on it, sighing and shaking his head.

Otto was instantly worried. “I’m sorry, my lord. I promise it didn’t take much time away-”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Jason said. “It’s amazing. It’s what we need. You’re a genius.”

Another sigh escaped him. “It’s me who’s an idiot.”

Alex started to speak up, frowning, but Jason cut him off. “No, it’s true. I told Otto exactly what to do, step by step. I at least gave him a decent idea of what we wanted as an end result and why we wanted it. But I was being idiotic.

“There’s a phrase I’ve heard before. Don’t teach your grandma to suck eggs. It made me laugh as a kid. But what it’s reminding me of now is that this town - this world, even - has a bunch of very intelligent people that know a thing or two about their profession.

“As smart as I like to think I am, there’s always going to be someone that knows more than me about any given subject. Or simply has different ideas that might actually be better. It doesn’t mean my thoughts aren’t any good, just that they need to be tested against others and refined. At the very least, I shouldn't micromanage those I know are competent.

“Otto, let me say it again - you’re a genius. These aren’t going to be like the full-fledged guns I was telling you about, but we’ll be able to put a charge of gunpowder in, a lead ball, and light them from the access port I see you included. That lead ball will shoot out a very long distance at a speed fast enough to penetrate steel armor. We’ll just need to make sure we can aim and shoot them accurately enough to matter.

“Tyler, unless I miss my guess, if we were able to give your men three or four of these, each loaded and ready to fire, you could make a real impact on their lines and morale before they even knew the battle had begun.”

“Yes, my lord, I believe I could,” Tyler replied. “I do believe I could.”

---

Several other refugees passed through their town in the following days, not wanting to stop any longer than they had to. The news remained grim, though Jason appreciated getting a clearer picture of the situation.

After the hamlet had been massacred, the commander hadn’t needed to repeat the atrocity. Apparently, learning the news that a neighboring village had already been wiped off of the map was even more impactful than hearing a threat about it. None of the subsequent communities put up a fight.

The commander had, strangely, decided to allow villagers to leave if they wished to. Most chose to stay, whether because they couldn’t bear to give up all their possessions or whether they didn’t trust the offer, Jason wasn’t sure. All he knew is that several families had been allowed to pack up whatever they could carry and go. Perhaps that’s the point, though. Spread the story and let people know that there’s no point in resisting. Makes his job easier, I guess. Who knows precisely what he’s thinking.

Jason was spending a decent amount of his time each day with the blacksmith’s son, Pein. The man wasn’t much more than a teenager but had shown an incredible talent for clear thinking and making intuitive leaps in reasoning that others might not naturally follow but were extremely valuable. He also could read and write proficiently - a relative rarity in the village.

Jason would have preferred to give concepts and recipes to someone and let them experiment with it while he worked on other things, but he decided that would be a Bad idea with a capital letter B. I’m not dumb enough to give a young guy with next to no experience a recipe for black powder and tell him to figure it out. Best case scenario, he loses his eyebrows. Worst case scenario, he’s dead. Oh, and I still wouldn’t have this vital part of my plan to save the town. And another key person to my plans, his dad, then hates me. Nope, I like to think I’m not that dumb. Still, he wanted to train Pein, and the bright youth had shown an interest in material properties and what he probably didn’t yet know would be referred to as chemistry.

They had taken the time to grind up each of the key ingredients using a mortar and pestle. The saltpeter would compose 75 percent of the final mixture, the charcoal 15 percent, and the sulfur 10 percent. Sulfur had been one of the first ingredients Alex had been able to get his hands on, and they had bags of the stuff - brimstone, the locals called it, which always made Jason smile. I guess I’ll be raining down fire and brimstone on my enemies… just not the way the preachers used to talk about it.

Saltpeter had been a lucky purchase from a traveling merchant. A luxury item that could be added to a bucket of water by nobles looking to cool their wine. Saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, was the limiting factor of how much gunpowder they could produce since charcoal was prolific. Jason expected to be able to purchase more saltpeter if he sent someone to a larger city; it just wouldn’t be in time for this conflict. He also had to reserve some of his supply to soak rope in to make a slow-burning match. It would be a shame to have everything ready to go, only to not be able to fire the shots reliably.

They were making progress - slow progress, but after making an initial minuscule test batch to prove their process worked, they wanted to process the ingredients in larger quantities. I wish we could go faster, but there’s no way I’m doing this by candle or lamp-light. That’s just asking for trouble. Slowly but surely it is, I guess. I hope Otto makes enough barrels and bullets for this to make a difference.

--

Tanya, the VP of Simulations at Razor, Inc, walked into her boss' office. She was surprised to see his boss there too - Edward Yates, CEO of Nontech, inventor of the brain-interface nanotech and Razor Inc’s new parent company.

“Hi, Tanya,” her boss, Charlie Miller, greeted her, and Edward smoothly turned around from where he was looking out the large picture window and reached out to shake her hand. “Glad you could join us.”

“Thank you, sir…” she replied but didn’t know what to say after that.

Edward continued, “Charlie and I were just discussing your new project - the digital consciousness? How’s that going? I believe you started the simulation yesterday?”

“That’s correct, sir,” Tanya responded, glad to be back in more familiar territory. “We began the simulation yesterday. But remember that time is accelerated - or at least that’s what it seems like - by 50 times for Jason. So every day out here is fifty in there. Every hour here is about two days for him.” She stopped before she could overshare further. Give upper management precisely what they ask for, no more, and no less. And don’t volunteer information that they don’t need. You’ll last a lot longer that way, she reminded herself.

“Fascinating,” Yates said, though Tanya couldn’t tell if he was sincere.

“I believe you took the lead in negotiations with the lawyer representing the consciousness? Jason, if we assume it to be alive and human for the purposes of the conversation?”

Tanya started to sweat, though she did her best to keep her cool. Language like that isn’t used when they want to give you an award or a pat on the back, she thought. “Yes, sir, following the very best advice of our corporate lawyers.” There, shift any potential blame.

“Of course,” Edward continued. “I’m sure Razor has excellent legal counsel. What I’m wondering is more along the lines of what we expect to get out of the deal? Charlie and I discussed the value of a head start on being the first to develop a pseudo-sentient artificial intelligence using the data generated from this project, and I agree, it’s certainly a worthwhile endeavor.

“But, Tanya, you specifically pushed for Jason to stay in a simulation, all by himself. A simulation, I might add, that is very resource-intensive to run. I know you wrote in your report that limiting the tech to a medieval era reduces the computing power required, but both you and I know that’s a minuscule effect when compared to the cost running the whole thing, anyway. When my assistant brought this up to me, I knew I had to ask you myself. What are your plans for him?”

Tanya very deliberately did not look towards her current boss - she knew Charlie would have been confused by the sudden change in the line of questions. This is it, she thought. My make or break moment.

She looked at Edward confidently and reverted back to her signature drawl. “I am glad you asked. Are you aware that the contract says we own exclusive rights to Jason’s data from this simulation?”

“Of course,” Yates said. “For research purposes.”

“Nope,” Tanya corrected. “For all purposes.” She let that linger in the air.

“You’ve seen how crazy the media is going over this situation. There’s not a single country in the world where this wasn’t front-page news this morning. I even encouraged those leaks to the media,” she paused for a breath. “Because next week, we’re going to announce a new 24/7 streaming service. Every eye is going to be watching what Jason does for a small fee to us.”

“Clever,” Edward admitted. “I do believe a worldwide phenomenon would bring in quite a few subscribers.”

“Tens if not hundreds of millions, I predict. And a few dollars from each of them every month.”

“Again, clever,” Edward spoke, his gaze harder this time. “But I was actually hoping for a bit more from someone who has a shot at taking his desk.” Yates jerked his thumb towards Charlie, and the man who had been leaning back in his chair lazily suddenly sat up and exclaimed, “Hey!” as a frown began to grow on his face.

“Shut up, Charlie,” Yates said, not taking his eyes off Tanya. Charlie’s frown deepened, and he sat back, but neither of the two saw or cared. “How are you sure that it will be interesting enough for people to keep watching beyond the next few days or weeks? Are you going to impress me?” the man who dominated the room asked again.

A smile that could almost be called malicious showed up on Tanya’s face.

“That expensive AI running the simulation that your assistant probably talked to you about? It’s going to be the one doing the editing of the show. It’s been instructed to keep adding on the pressure in the simulation to keep our viewers entertained, too. But here’s the beauty. The AI, and therefore we, control what the world sees, and everyone will be tuning in to watch our version of that story. What happens when they see power-hungry Jason, building up his despotic empire? Will they want that digital consciousness loose? No, they’ll beg us, pay us, to keep him. What about a Jason that murders? Or steals? Or any other of the hundreds of scenarios where he’s just too unstable to let roam without restrictions?

“At that point, he’s ours to do whatever we want with, and I can think of a dozen experiments I’d love to run on a digital mind - or a piece of one, at any rate, and try to figure out how we might be able to create another. We might have the chance to brush immortality. Think about what that might be worth.”

“Intriguing,” Yates said, and this time he really meant it. He turned and spoke. “Charlie, you’re fired.”

“You can’t do that!” the ordinarily confident man whined. “The board appointed me, and only they can remove me.”

“They’ll vote on it tomorrow. Might as well start packing up now. Tanya, enjoy your new office. I’m sure you and I will work very well together.”

“Yes, sir.”